Casual Friday: Vintage Floral Modernized

Several weeks ago I posted some highly controversial musings on The Fatal Allure of Prints, in which I confessed a push-pull relationship with print dresses and suggested that the desire for prints might be sublimated more wisely in printed blouses.

I even suggested a few possibilities, including this one:

Theory Floral Print Vaneese Cami

The lure of this printed camisole proved too powerful for me to resist.

Overcome by the power of my own suggestion

The print is very old-fashioned, which makes it interesting as a slinky camisole. Because there is no such thing as Business Slinky, I’ve paired the camisole with a lightweight cotton lawn blouse. And to modernize the print, I am wearing it casually with khakis and bright flats.

I’ve had this white blouse for ages and wear it all the time. Some day it will simply disintegrate in the laundry and I will be bereft. I have scoped out a possible replacement, but it’s horribly expensive.

On to happier thoughts! While the camisole requires coverage, it deserves to be seen — hence the filmy blouse. The camisole also has a shirt-tail hem, exaggeratedly long in the back. Perhaps the tail is too long and should be shorted two or three inches.

Beloved blouse; may actually be thinner today than when purchased because of frequent wearing

Close-up intended to show the filmy layer over the camisole may only be showing how horribly wrinkled this blouse is

Because it’s summer, I need a jacket when indoors.

Mud colored jacket is just the thing with radioactive fuschia shoes

However bright these shoes may appear in this photo, they are brighter in person

7 thoughts on “Casual Friday: Vintage Floral Modernized”

Hi Directrice!
I had a cotton voile blouse quite similar to the one you show and it did fall apart, not before I had worn and washed it to complete transparency. Your jcrew finding seems to be a good replacement, and for the price it should withstand more than a few washes, but I wonder if it would make sense to buy fabric and have a tailor replicate the one you have. I’ve never done anything like that, or heard of someone who actually did it, but I have dreamed of doing so with a few loved, irreplaceable items. However, I’m not sure whether the time and cost would be worth it, and I don’t have a trusted tailor to begin with.

I agree, the back of the camisole should be shortened. It may also be worth spending an hour or so at a fabric store looking through all of the pattern books. There may be a similar blouse pattern available to buy and then you could make (or have made, if you are not a seamstress) one, or even a couple in different colours…..

Hi, just discovered your blog and having been poring over the archives from the beginning. This is as far as I’ve gotten so I don’t know whether there’s been an update on the state of the white blouse, but I clicked over to that J. Crew possible replacement and it’s on sale this weekend. I’m very much enjoying your senses of humor and style – looking forward to reading on.